


Arm Candy With Benefits

by sartietingles



Series: Sartie Week [7]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-07
Updated: 2012-07-07
Packaged: 2017-11-09 08:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/453291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sartietingles/pseuds/sartietingles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Artie and Sam shouldn't be allowed to go to award shows but they do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arm Candy With Benefits

**Author's Note:**

> dedicated to redheadscientist because she is sad today and when sad need fluff

Artie Abrams lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling, stomach churning, mind racing, heart pounding. It was late – how late he didn't know – and his bed felt cold. He scrambled over to the clock on the bedside table, now curious about the time. It was too blurry for him to see – in his tiredness he'd forgotten he needed glasses – so he grabbed his glasses and turned on the lamp.

3 am.

Great.

He rolled over and sighed, and he'd just turned light off when another light walked into the room.

"Hey, hot stuff," his boyfriend Sam grinned at him. "Why are you still up?"

Artie rubbed his eyes. "Can't sleep," he explained, then he held out his arms for a hug.

Sam chuckled. "You turn into a five year old when you're tired, you know." He dropped the guitar and bag he was holding at the door and made his way towards Artie in the dark.

"Don't care," Artie said, pouting. "Need hug."

Sam obliged, pulling Artie to his chest and resting his cheek at the top of his head.

"You nervous about tomorrow?" he asked him.

"Nope," Artie replied stubbornly, going on in a calculated voice. "There's nothing I can do now but hope for the best. All the work's long done and worrying won't make it any more likely that we win."

"Yeah, you know that," Sam smiled, "But you're still nervous.  _I'm_  nervous and I'm not the one with an Academy Award nomination looming over me!" he laughed.

Artie gulped. Whenever anyone said the words 'Oscar' or 'Academy Award' he was always gripped with fear that it was all just a crazy dream. But there was one other thing he was nervous about for tomorrow as well…

"How many nominations did your movie get again?" Sam jeered, trying to make Artie feel better. "Was it two? Three?"

"Four," Artie whispered into Sam's chest, allowing himself an indulgent smile.

"Exactly," Sam said, kissing the top of Artie's head, holding him closer.

Artie grinned, his worries melting away in Sam's arms. He sighed and stayed with his head against Sam's chest until he realised something.

"Sam, you smell," he coughed, recoiling slightly.

Sam lifted up an arm and gave a sniff. "Whoa!" he said, making a face. "Sorry about that."

Artie laughed. "It's ok," he said, before adding with a smirk. "It's kind of hot."

Sam shook his head. "There's a point where smelling like sweaty beer stops being the sign of a good gig and starts being totally gross."

Artie giggled as he watched Sam wrestle himself out of his smelly clothes and throw them away in disgust.

Sam looked up. "So you're just going to ogle at me?"

Artie stared unabashed. "Yup."

"How long have we been together now?" Sam asked mockingly. "And you're still gaping like some horny teenager?"

Artie laughed. "Nine years?" he mused. "We got together when we were eighteen…"

"Wow," Sam stopped throwing clothes around to give Artie an awed look. He couldn't really say he was surprised they had lasted that long – the two of them just  _worked_  together so well. "That's ages. Now I feel really old."

"Me too," Artie made a disgusted face. "Gross, huh?"

Sam laughed. "Totally."

He hopped into the shower in their en suite, singing loudly. Artie melted back into the pillows and sighed.  _There were definitely some perks to living with a musician,_  he thought, losing himself in Sam's voice.

There were also some drawbacks however. Sam got so into his shower performances that they went for ages at a time.

"Sam!" Artie yelled. "Hurry up! I can't sleep without you."

"Two-minutes, Artie-bear!" he called back, starting a new song.

Artie sighed fondly.

Eventually Sam's shower concert ended and he snuggled up against Artie under the covers. Artie immediately wrapped his arms around firmly his waist, like it had been ages since they'd touched.

Artie rested his head on Sam's chest. "How did the gig go?" he asked, enjoying the rise and fall of Sam's breathing. "Sorry I didn't ask before."

Sam waved it off. "It's fine. And it went really well," he said. "We sold out the place which was pretty cool."

"Wow." Artie planted a congratulatory kiss on the side of Sam's jaw.

"Yeah, now that we're actually popular and making money Lauren can stop telling Finn to stop throwing his drumsticks into the crowd because she doesn't want to have to pay for new ones."

Artie laughed. Lauren had been a hardass manager since she tried to take on the boyband they started in their sophomore year. Artie wasn't sure how she dealt with Finn, Puck, Sam and the floppy haired bass dude whose name he always forgot so well since they were such a handful when they were together. Puck was basically a living breathing PR disaster – but then Lauren always knew how to deal with Puck.

Artie smiled and took Sam's hand that had been resting at his side, playing with his fingers and tracing small circles on his palms with his thumb. "I'm so proud of you."

Sam's hand squeezed Artie's. "Me too."

They murmured their 'I love you's and fell asleep in each other's arms.

* * *

The sun beat down on Artie's face as the angry flashes of hundreds of cameras burned his eyes. He was comforted by the feel of Sam's hand on his back as they posed, suited up and looking mighty fine, on the red carpet. They were shoved around by managers and other important, busy people with clipboards and headpieces. Artie wasn't a huge fan of awards shows. Luckily people cared more for actors than directors so Artie wasn't too much in the limelight, but his relationship with Sam Evans from Red and the Solo Cups kind of countered that and meant he had to sit through mindless, inane interviews in which they always felt the need to bring up his chair.

"Do you find it," the man said, giving an affected pause, trying to search for a word that shouldn't require that much thought, " _challenging_ , doing your job in the condition you're in?"

"Not really, no," Artie smiled charmingly despite this being the fourth time someone had asked him that question in the last twenty minutes. "I mean – I'm a director not a cross country runner. It really doesn't make any difference," he joked dismissively.

The journalist nodded and moved on to Sam, asking him about gigs and upcoming albums.

"We played a show last night, actually," Sam said. "I still haven't quite recovered from it yet so I'm kind of hoping no one asks me any hard questions tonight."

The journalist laughed heartily.

"I'm just on arm candy duty tonight I think," Sam joked.

Artie swatted his arm. "He's lying," he grinned. "I wouldn't have even made it out of the limo without a breakdown if he hadn't been here. He's definitely better than just arm candy."

"Arm candy with benefits?" Sam mused and they both chortled.

They were ushered off to another interviewer. "So, up for best director this year?" she began dramatically. "How does it feel?"

"Terrible," Artie answered, deadpan. They all laughed then he gave a proper answer.

"And you two caused quite a scandal a couple of years back when the rumours came out that you were dating! Do you want to talk about that a bit?"

Sam and Artie looked at each other and laughed widely.

"We actually thought it was pretty funny," Sam grinned. "Because, I mean we moved out to LA together from Ohio… we'd been together since after we graduated high school."

"Yeah," Artie agreed. "It wasn't supposed to be a secret but suddenly when people starting knowing who we were… like when Red's second album was a big hit and I was working on _Transformers 4_ … it was all… dramatic you know when candids were released of us on dates or whatever."

Sam chuckled. "No one told us it was meant to be a secret!"

"Well, you two are very cute together," gushed the interviewer.

They murmured their thankyous while grinning widely, not taking their eyes off each other. Sometimes you could really tell they were high school sweethearts.

"Any chance of a kiss for our cameras?"

Sam knelt down next to Artie and patted his cheek expectantly, and when Artie leaned in to give him a peck on the cheek Sam turned his head, took Artie's face in his hands and planted a loud smooch on his lips.

Eventually everyone was ushered inside. Artie's cast table was at the front so he wouldn't have to go through aisles of people if he won anything. His hands were shaking so he grabbed Sam's under the table as he talked to the cast, comforting the young woman who was up for best supporting actress, congratulating the composer on his best score nomination, calling for a group hands in to celebrate the nomination for best film. All the while Sam was beaming at him and it kept Artie grounded. He knew that even without all this he'd be so happy, because no matter where they would have been tonight Sam would have been there with his stupid heart-eyes, making Artie feel like the best person in the world. That was all he needed.

As he realised this, one set of nerves died down and another flared up as a decision concreted in his brain.

The awards started off slowly with awkward scripted comedy from the hosts and what seemed to be hours of endless clapping and smiling politely. Sam kept nudging him and pointing to people he recognised.

"Artie that's Steven Spielberg over there," Sam whispered, doing an excited dance. He nearly had a heart attack when he saw Harrison Ford. "Should I go over?" he asked Artie. "I really want to go over. Do you think he'd mind? I'd just ask him to father my children that's all."

Artie slapped him and laughed. "Sam he's like 80."

Sam stared on in earnest. "I can't hear you over the sound of how sexy he is."

Artie rolled his eyes and pulled Sam closer to him, entwining their fingers together again.

Their supporting actress took away her award but the composer missed out. It was only a matter of time before the awards for Best Director were announced.

Sam was helping Artie practise his disappointed-I-didn't-win-but-they-totally-deserved-it face up until the last moment.

"And the nominees are," Jude Law said dramatically. Artie suddenly became really nervous about how he'd greet Jude Law if he got up on that stage… and what if his arms shook too much for him to work his chair? And what if-

"For his work on the smash-hit sci-fi musical thriller, Artie Abrams!"

Artie knew there was a camera he was supposed to be looking at but he just looked at Sam and smiled and once again he felt calm. Sam kissed his cheek meriting an 'awww' from their table.

"And the Oscar goes to…"

And Artie hardly heard his name over the sound of Sam cheering. He stood up and did a huge fist pump, waving his arms in the air. He suddenly sat down very meekly because he remembered what a formal event he was at.

Artie was about to start rolling away and Sam knelt down to kiss his cheek. "You're amazing. I love you. You deserve it. Now go accept the fuck out of that award."

Jude Law was adjusting the mic stand down to Artie's height as he rolled up onto the stage (they'd included ramps this year for him how very thoughtful) and he presented the Oscar to Artie, going for a handshake but Artie pulled him down for a hug.

He rolled up to the mic, seeing the hundreds of people staring at him, feeling nervous. A combination of Sam's face in the crowd and the memory of how little attention he paid to other people's speeches calmed him down.

"Wow, he's super hot," Artie blurted, giving Jude Law a little wave. "Hey, Jude!" Artie chuckled at his own wit and heard Sam's laugh boom over the polite chuckles of the crowd.

Artie eventually pulled himself together, congratulated the other nominees, thanked his cast. "I couldn't have done this without you guys and your crazy talent," he gushed, smiling. Then he fingered the small box in his pocket, looked at Sam and went on. "I know this is way too personal and totally unprofessional and the orchestra's probably going to cut me off, but I know some of you have heard of my partner Sam over there."

There was a collective murmur and turning of heads in Sam's direction. "Wave, honey! Yeah - that's him isn't he gorgeous?"

A laugh rippled through the room. "Anyway, Sam, I need to thank you, most of all, for everything you've done for me, and the person you've helped me become. You are my world and I owe everything to you."

There was a soft 'aww' from the crowd.

"So… this  _isn't_  the happiest day of my life. But, Sam, if you say yes to this… it'll mean that every day from now on is the happiest because I'll be spending all of them with you." Artie took a deep breath. "So I wanted to ask you, in front of all these people who probably don't care very much and just want to get to an after party and get their drink on-"

The crowd laughed sheepishly.

"Sam Evans, will you marry me?"

All the heads in the room turn to Sam again.

He was beaming at Artie, a tear or two on his face. There was a heavy silence waiting for his answer.

He scoffed. "No."

The crowd gasped and Artie's heart stopped for a second.

But then Sam was yelling, "I'M JOKING, GOD! OF COURSE I'LL MARRY YOU, YOU IDIOT."

And Artie wheeled off the stage to applause and met Sam at the edge of the ramp and the ceremony goes on but the cameras are flashing at the two of them in their corner.

"I love you," Artie said.

"I know," Sam replied, before turning around and giving a huge thumbs up to Harrison Ford who gave him a thumbs up back and the two men, despite being nearly in their thirties, squealed.

When they got back to their table Artie pulled the box out of his pocket, placing the ring on Sam's finger and kissing his hand. He spent the rest of the night with his head on Sam's shoulder, thinking of how amazing the last nine years had been, and dreaming of how it could only get better in the future.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This is the end of my Sartie Week series but never fear there is always more sartie festering away in my brain.
> 
> Ta ta for now and may the force be with you.


End file.
